I need some advice on oscilloscopes/pre-amplifiers for measuring small impulses (microvolt).
I need to measure single impulses, typically of 10 microvolts in amplitude and a few milliseconds in length.
What oscilloscope should I buy? Would I need a pre-amplifier? If so, are there any inexpensive pre-amplifiers available?
Most PC (USB) oscilloscopes (in the price range of 150-500) I have seen have input ranges down to 10 millivolt/Div and a resolution of 8 bit (256 levels). As I understand from this guide, this means the lowest voltage that can be measured with such oscilloscope is 10 millivolt / 256 = 39 microvolt.
Is this true or do oscilloscopes and pre-amplifiers have a minimum threshold, below which they cannot measure/amplify a voltage? I mean, can I measure anything the oscilloscope can display?
Probably I would need to be able to measure with a sensitivity of something like 0,5 microvolt or at least 1 microvolt.
Which model (oscilloscope and pre-amplifier) can I buy that is not too expensive?
I figure minimum quality if I buy an oscilloscope would be 2 (or 5) millivolt/Div and 12 bit (gives 0,5 microvolt sensitivity). But I havent found any model like this!
Or I could buy a preamplifier that amplifies the signal at least 100 times (20dB) (i.e. 0,39 microvolts is amplified to 39 microvolts).
The only "oscilloscope amplifier" I have found is this one, which can amplify 1000 times but also cost about 1000 bucks.
Can I use any amplifier, something simple like this one or this one (meant as a guitar amplifier, I guess)?
My idea is to use a second channel to measure the noise and just substract that from my real impulse (standard for the kind of measurement I want to do). Would this still work if I use two different pre-amplifiers (one pre-amplifier for each channel)?
I would be very grateful if you could verify if my understand is correct (e.g. there are no minimum thresholds other than resolution) and tips on specific models. Should I go for a pre-amplifier or find a better oscilloscope?
Thanks!
I need to measure single impulses, typically of 10 microvolts in amplitude and a few milliseconds in length.
What oscilloscope should I buy? Would I need a pre-amplifier? If so, are there any inexpensive pre-amplifiers available?
Most PC (USB) oscilloscopes (in the price range of 150-500) I have seen have input ranges down to 10 millivolt/Div and a resolution of 8 bit (256 levels). As I understand from this guide, this means the lowest voltage that can be measured with such oscilloscope is 10 millivolt / 256 = 39 microvolt.
Is this true or do oscilloscopes and pre-amplifiers have a minimum threshold, below which they cannot measure/amplify a voltage? I mean, can I measure anything the oscilloscope can display?
Probably I would need to be able to measure with a sensitivity of something like 0,5 microvolt or at least 1 microvolt.
Which model (oscilloscope and pre-amplifier) can I buy that is not too expensive?
I figure minimum quality if I buy an oscilloscope would be 2 (or 5) millivolt/Div and 12 bit (gives 0,5 microvolt sensitivity). But I havent found any model like this!
Or I could buy a preamplifier that amplifies the signal at least 100 times (20dB) (i.e. 0,39 microvolts is amplified to 39 microvolts).
The only "oscilloscope amplifier" I have found is this one, which can amplify 1000 times but also cost about 1000 bucks.
Can I use any amplifier, something simple like this one or this one (meant as a guitar amplifier, I guess)?
My idea is to use a second channel to measure the noise and just substract that from my real impulse (standard for the kind of measurement I want to do). Would this still work if I use two different pre-amplifiers (one pre-amplifier for each channel)?
I would be very grateful if you could verify if my understand is correct (e.g. there are no minimum thresholds other than resolution) and tips on specific models. Should I go for a pre-amplifier or find a better oscilloscope?
Thanks!